Danny Sullivan, Google Scholar Offers Access To Academic Information, Search Engine Watch, November 18, 2004. Excerpt: 'Google has worked with publishers to gain access to some material that wouldn't ordinarily be accessible to search spiders, because it is locked behind subscription barriers....But Google's made arrangements with publishers to get into these password areas. The advantage is that suddenly, searchers have a much better ability to locate material that may be of interest. However, it also means that actually trying to read the full-text of such documents -- which Google does index -- will only be possible for those who have relationships with the publishing sites. Google says, by the way, that it does not earn money off of any new subscriptions generated between searchers and publishers....When spidering the content, Google has worked to understand who the authors of the papers are, as well as the formal titles of the papers and other documents that cite the material. These citations are a key part of the special ranking algorithm used by Google for Google Scholar. Google says the citation extractions allows it to see the connections between papers even if these connections are not made through links. As a result, it can use citation analysis to try and put the best papers at the top of the results....The same paper may be hosted in more than one place, of course. In these instances, Google picks what it believes is the best version and provides links to other versions after the paper's description. In some cases, the material is not actually online. Google may know about a paper only through references it has seen on other papers. In these cases, a Library Search and Web Search link will appear next to the paper or book's title.'
Posted by
Peter Suber at 11/18/2004 01:41:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
